A great deal of monetary resources are used by business as to promote or sell their products. These monetary resources are used to buy advertisement space or time in specific media channels in the hopes that the advertisement is seen or heard by its intended audience. Each media channel though attracts a varying degree of individuals. For example, if a motorcycle manufacturer wanted to advertise its products, motorcycles, it would have to determine which media channel to use to advertise its products. One methodology would be to use the advertisement resources on the most popular media channels in the hopes that is absorbed by its intended buyer. Another methodology is to target the advertisement resources to media channels where the intended buyers are most likely to absorb or be exposed to the information. In order to do this, the motorcycle manufacturer would need to know some information about its buyers. The latter methodology is more advantageous, especially for those businesses that have a limited advertisement budget.
There is one type of media channel, television, where there is an enormous amount of advertisement resources expended. With the advent of television and the limited number of networks or stations available to the viewer, a majority, if not all the television advertisement resources, were expended on these stations. With the advent of cable television, the possible number of stations available to the viewers can be in the hundreds. Theoretically, the advertisement resources should now be distributed among all these stations. However, this has not been the case. One reason is the lack of good statistical analysis on viewership.
Television media, similar to radio, offers unique challenges for advertisers. One of these challenges is that the advertisement, in order to be most effective, needs to be targeted to its intended audience. Therefore, an analysis would need to be done in order to determine when the intended audience is most likely to view the advertisements and then run the advertisements at that selected period.
The Nielson Ratings collects viewer data and makes its available to advertisers as a tool to help target their intended audience. Nielsen uses people meters to collect minute by minute household and person's data 365 days per year. These meters provide comprehensive information about who is watching and what they are watching.
The people meters are most effective in that they track what each person in a household is watching. For example, in a house of a mother, father, a son and a daughter, each individual is tracked by the people meter by each person “logging into” the meter and alerting the meter that a specific person is now watching the television program.
In Nielsen markets where there are meters, a box is placed on the outside of the house and the viewing habits of the residents are captured. The residents are supposed to fill out a diary and send the information to Nielsen. However, in reality, the diaries are being returned are incomplete and/or lacking vital information. There are large gaps in the data collected from Nielsen as to who is watching the television programming especially if there are multiple viewing residents in the house.
Even though there is a discontinuity in the data, the traditional model of advertising spending on the major networks has substantially stayed the same. Furthermore, the data does not accurately take into account the explosive growth of cable television. Therefore, there is a need for an effective way for advertisers and/or businesses to determine how most effectively to use their advertising budget in order to reach their intended audience. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and apparatus that can provide these benefits.